The Times-Herald can report this detail because, on Monday, he led an impromptu guided tour of the city's departments, checking with employees about how many calls have come in on the subject.

He's had his staff tracking the number of calls for "a little over a week," and for those keeping score, there have been a total of six of them — two fielded by Noble personally.

"The purpose of this exercise is to show the scale of it," Noble explained as he descended a city hall staircase to lead the way back to his office. "We've only had six complaints."

The scale of the flooding problem — in particular, the number of homes that have flooded and the total financial cost of the damages stemming from it — are important numbers for the city to have.

City administration and council are going to need them to apply for consideration for relief under the provincial disaster assistance program (PDAP).

"What I was told by the fire chief is that we would need a minimum of 10 people with an aggregate of $50,000 in damages," explained Noble.

What he has discovered since is that Moose Jaw is nowhere near those thresholds.

As the Times-Herald has previously reported, while other Saskatchewan communities received tremendous amounts of rainfall in recent weeks, Moose Jaw made off relatively well — even with 22 days of rainfall in the month of June alone.

Still, some homeowners — six, in the past week or so — have suffered basement flooding, and have been calling in to the city to complain.

In investigating their complaints, Noble said he discovered that a large amount of those instances were the result of a higher than normal water table resulting in problems with seepage.

"All of a sudden, people are having to install sump pumps and they assume it must be something the city did," said Noble. "But if you have seepage issues, there's not much the city can do for you. These are issues we have to deal with as property owners."

The simple truth, suggested Noble, is that the damage that has been reported to the city is not severe enough to declare an emergency.

"If we make a declaration (now), every time we get rainfall we will have to make another declaration," he added. "And then what kind of credibility do we have with the province while they are dealing with places like Melville?"

Noble said he doesn't fault the few homeowners who have suffered floods for reaching out.

"If I was the person with the problem, I'd be begging the city to do something, too," he said.

"I have tremendous empathy for those individuals," Noble added. "(But) the province is going to come out and they're going to investigate it."

Ultimately, the decision to apply for PDAP doesn't rest with Noble — the authority is with city council.

However, his position is clear.

In his own words, he "just wouldn't trade the credibility of the city for one person."